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1/2/2015 1:18PM

Mario Cuomo's 1984 DNC Speech

Former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo died on January 1 at age 82. His speech defending liberalism at the Democratic National Convention on July 16, 1984, was one of the defining moments of his career. Here’s an excerpt.

This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.

... ten days ago ... president Reagan admitted that although some people in this country ... seem to be going well nowadays ... what is what happened ... even more ... about themselves their families and their futures ... the president said that he didn't understand that be ... he said ... why this country is a shining city on I don't ... the president is right ... in many ways we are a shining city on the tail ... but the hard truth is that not everyone ... is sharing in the city's splendor and glory ... a shining city is perhaps although presidencies from ... what I call the White House of the veranda of his ranch ... where everyone seems to be doing well ... but there's another city ... is another part of the shining city ... the park where some people can't pay their mortgages ... most young people can afford one ... where students can afford the education they need ... and middle class parents watch that means they are told that children evaporate ... in this part of the city ... they're a lot more than ever ... more families in trouble more and more people ... who need help but can't find it ... even worse ... there are elderly people trembled in the basement so the houses there ... and there are people who was sleeping in the city streets in the dugout ... with the glitter doesn't show ... their ghettos where thousands of young people without a job or education ... give their lives away to drug dealers everyday ... there is this a m as the president ... in the face is that you don't say ... in the places that you don't visit ... in your shining city ... in fact Mr President this is our nation the the the the the the the the ... Mr President you want to know ... this nation is more a tale of two cities ... when it is just a shining city on Adele ... the the uh uh uh uh uh uh uh ... maybe maybe it was the president YouTube is the pits of all places ... maybe you went to the late show with some people still live instead ... maybe if you want a Lackawanna with thousands of unemployed Steelworkers wonder why we subsidize bonds pay the the the ... maybe ... if you stop being ... sheltered in Chicago ... spoke to the homeless they are ... maybe that Mr President if you ask the warm and wet been denied the help she needed to feed our children because you said you needed the money for a tax break from the ash fall from its all the the the uh uh uh uh uh uh uh uh ... the the the the ... the ... I'm afraid not ... because the truth is ladies and gentlemen that this is how we woke warned it would be ... president Reagan told us from the ... very beginning ... but he believed in the kind of social Darwinism survival of the fittest ... government can't do everything we were told so which its outlook for taking care of the strong and hope that economic ambition and charity ... will do the red ... make the rich richer and what falls from the table will be enough for the middle class and those who were trying desperately to work their way into the middle class ... the the the the the ... no ... the Republicans call the trickle down what it would try to ... now they call it supply side ... but it's the same shining city because relatively few lucky enough to live and it's good neighborhoods ... but for the people who are excluded ... people will walk out all they can do is stamp from a distance ... at that cities ... delivering thousands ... the Republicans believe that the wagon train will not make it to the front IA it how much some of the old somebody on some of the we all left behind by the side of the trail ... the strongest wrong they tell us ... will inherit the land ... we Democrats believe in something else we Democrats believe that we can make it all the way with the whole family intact ... we have more than once ... the the the the the the the the the ... I ... her ... name ... Franklin Roosevelt lifted himself from his wheelchair to live this nation from its knees ... why didn't write that the wagon train to New frontiers of education ... housing in East the whole plainly avoid constantly reaching out to withstand an enlarged that family lifting them up into the wagon on the way ... blacks and Hispanics and people of every ethnic group that Native Americans ... all those struggling to fill their families and claim some small share of America ... Democrats must unite ... we Democrats must unite so that the entire nation ... Chen United ... and Arsenal with the Republicans will bring this country together ... their policies to buy the nation and double locking ... and a left out ... and of the royalty ... and travel ... the Republicans are willing to treat that division is victory ... what ... this nation in the hat ... into those ... temporarily better off ... and those worse off than before ... and they would call back division ... recovery ... now ... the the the the the ... the we must be ... the family of America recognizing that at the heart of the matter we are back on the one to another ... but the problems of a retired ... schoolteacher and all those ... are the problem is ... that the future of the child ... the future of the child in Buffalo ... is the future ... the struggle of a disabled man in Boston to supply them but we simply it's ... all a struggle ... but the hunger of a woman in little Rock ... it's the law into ... the cafe again in a way ... to provide what reasonably tweet my ... to avoid any use out of bed yet ... and I ask you now ... ladies and gentleman ... brothers and sisters ... of all of us ... for the love of this great nation ... the family of America ... love of God ... please make this nation remember ... how you choose the bill ... thank you and God the the the the the the the ...